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7 Terrifyingly Effective Halloween Marketing Campaigns That Sent Chills Down Our Spine

Spooky season is in full swing and digital marketers are rising up from the dead for this occasion. Brands spend a lot of money on Halloween inspired marketing campaigns. Marketers enjoy free license and can go crazy with their creativity to craft a marketing campaign that can send chills down your spine.

Brands want to prolong the spooky season to boost their sales. Therefore, they tend to get into the act early even before the leaf changes color. That is why you might see Halloween-themed products make their way on to supermarket shelves weeks before the event.

Get an edge over your competitor by applying various marketing methods including running Halloween ads in local newspapers, flyers and pamphlets distribution, put a banner on the most crowded location, and much more. Move over your design burden hiccups and get the latest flyers designed using Halloween flyer template to save time & effort.

With thousands of brands fighting for customers’attention at Halloween, your marketing campaign can easily get lost in the noise. To make sure that does not happen to your marketing campaign, you will have to make it unique. Here are some of the examples of Halloween marketing campaigns by brands that you can use as inspiration for your Halloween marketing campaign.

1.     Burger King Scary Clown Night

Taking a jab at McDonald’s while staying true to the spooky season, Burger King offered a free whopper to the first 500 customers who visited selected Burger King outlets in a clown outfit. Burger King did not stop there and created an ad where a young man must flee an army of clowns following him down the road. It trolled the famous mascot from McDonald’s with a hashtag “#ScaryClownNight

2.     Fanta Snapchat Codes

If you want to see a perfect example of how you can integrate a tangible product with social media, then look no further than Fanta’s Snapchat codes campaign. Fanta introduced Halloween themed cans and placed QR codes. As soon as the consumer scans the QR code, a unique Snapchat filter is unlocked. Creepy china dolls and shedding tears were two of the Snapchat filters that become wildly popular.

halloween marketing campaign

3.     Buffalo Wild Wings Red Zone

Talk about getting inside the heads of your customers and understanding their deepest fears and Buffalo Wild Wings nailed it with this marketing campaign. The restaurant chain released a three-minute video where the fan of Flora Gators dressed up like Georgia Bulldogs fan for Halloween, but what happened next is enough to give some sleepless nights to hardcore sports fans. I am not going to spoil the fun and tell you what happened; you can check it out yourself.

4.     Lyft Paranormal Rides

After the release of the second season of Stranger Things, Lyft join hands with Stranger Things to bring paranormal rides for its customers. It allowed passengers to enter the mysterious world of Stranger Things by booking a ride in “Strange Mode”.

The complete environment was created by using a combination of static sounds and dynamic lighting. The rider can also experience slugs and might find people dressed in hazmat suits approaching your vehicle. It might have given some passengers a shock, but it was certainly a move that aligned perfectly with the Halloween spirit.

5.     Airbnb Real Life Scare

I could have included any pranks or stunts performed by brands from time to time but at the end of the day pranks are just that, pranks. That is why I decided to stick to real-world scenarios. In 2015, Airbnbupped the ante by offering a bone-chilling experience by letting people spend Halloween night in catacomb of Paris. It is an underground ossuary which is home to the remains of six million departed souls. It is like living amongst the dead.

Interested customers had to send an entry telling Airbnb that they are brave enough to take on this unique challenge. Two un-lucky winners got to enjoy a weird culinary experience that none offered anywhere else in the world, along with the opportunity to attend a private concert.

6.     Guinness Creepy Shadows

Guinness needs no introduction when it comes to highly creative marketing. Continuing their tradition, Guinness has something special planned for Halloween. They launched a new shadow-shaped coaster, which might not be the flashiest Halloween marketing campaign, but certainly showed that you can still look cool by using your creativity and simplicity.

7.     Oreo Laboratorium

Ever heard of a laboratory that could transform biscuits into monsters? I can bet the answer is in negative. Oreo Laboratorium did just that. The Oreo Laboratorium campaign revolved around short videos showing a laboratory thatcould convert biscuits into an assortment of monsters.

The videos went viral, but Oreo took things up a notch by asking fans to come up with names of monsters. They chose the best ones and rewarded the fans who suggested those names. By harnessing the power of user-generated content, Oreo managed to hit a six with this campaign.

Which one, in your opinion, is the best Halloween marketing campaign? Let us know in the comments section below.

Muneeb Siddiqui

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